August 2

August 2, 2009

The Bread of Life
a sermon on John 6.24-35
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama

Walter J. Ciszek was a Jesuit priest who snuck into the Soviet Union in the early 1940s as a missionary. Under Stalin, Christians of all types were horribly persecuted. The Roman Catholic Church, concerned for Catholics in Russia, decided to smuggle in some priests; and Ciszek was one of these. His memoir is entitled With God in Russia. It’s an interesting read. Strangely, the part I remember best was a minor incident that happened on a train. He had been caught, and he was being transferred for trial or punishment. On the way, they gave him nothing to eat. He hadn’t eaten for a couple of days, I think. Even the soldiers guarding him did not have much. But they had a little. He was sitting in a train car with two of them, and they were eating, but of course they didn’t offer him anything. One of the soldiers dropped a piece of buttered bread. The floor was dirty, so he didn’t pick it up. Ciszek was starving. He began to eye that piece of fallen bread. He wanted so desperately to eat it. He was afraid to ask for it. He hoped they would leave it and he could eat it later. For a long while he sat, hungry for that piece of dirty buttered bread. Reading his account, you feel so sorry for him you want to pick the thing up and give it to him. He never did get to eat it. One of the soldiers threw it away. Ciszek knew hunger in a way most of us can only imagine. He knew how precious a bit of bread can be.

Today’s scripture reading is about bread, but not just any bread. Jesus tells the crowd, “I am the bread of life!” I believe that when he said this, he intended to connect with more with our guts than our heads. He wasn’t giving us something to think about. He was giving us something to feel. You have to remember, bread meant something different for the people who first heard him than it does to us. For us, bread is one small part of a balanced diet, unless you’re on the Atkins diet, in which case you don’t eat bread at all. That would have made no sense to peasants in first century Palestine, where you ate bread or you starved to death. Bread meant more to them. They worked harder for it. Most families baked their own bread. For them, bread was the difference between lying awake all night, unable to sleep because hunger is piercing your belly with a sharp pain and sleeping well because your belly is full. Yes, there is content for our heads in this passage. What did Jesus mean when he called himself the bread of life? That part is fairly obvious. The part we are in danger of missing is the gut reaction. Ciszek wouldn’t have missed it. Have you ever longed for God the way he desired that dirty piece of buttered bread? I hope so. That kind of deep, burning hunger for God is a special gift of grace. It doesn’t just happen, and it doesn’t come naturally. If you ever feel it, it is a sure sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. You can be sure God has his hand on you.

I want to use my classic two-step sermon outline this morning. In step one, we will explore the passage and find out what was going on. It basically comes down to a case of mistaken identity. Jesus and the crowd were telling the same story, but they identified the characters differently. In step two, we will reflect on what it means for us that Jesus is the bread of life. Maybe you are hungry. I hope you are, but you don’t have to be to find this image meaningful.

Our reading dropped us down into the middle of the action. To follow the conversation, you have to know what has just happened. Jesus has just worked two signs. Some people call them miracles, but the gospel calls them signs, because they point to something beyond themselves. They happen in order to point us to where God is and what he is doing. The first sign was the feeding of the 5,000. You remember that. Jesus was teaching a large crowd, and everyone kind of lost track of time until someone said, “Hey, I’m hungry.” There were thousands of people but no food, except five small loaves and two fish. Jesus had the people sit down. He took the bread, blessed it and broke it and gave it to the people. Everyone had enough to eat with twelve baskets left over.

The other sign was Jesus walking on water. The disciples went ahead in the boat while Jesus stayed on land to pray. During the night he caught up with them. His presence in the boat quieted a storm. The other gospels state that Jesus’ disciples in the boat realized the significance of what had happened, and they worshipped him as the Son of God. John passes over this in silence, moving immediately to the events of the next day.

Our reading began with the crowd’s question about how Jesus got to the other side of the lake. That sign, however, was for the disciples, so Jesus pushes it aside and attacks their motives. He says they have tracked him down not because they perceived the meaning of the sign when he fed them but merely because they want more bread. They are looking too low. They cling to tiny, shriveled dreams. They ought to look up, to God, with faith and hope. Instead they would be content with a full belly.

Lest we judge them harshly, most of us are the same way. Give us a nice place to live, a stable income, a comfortable lifestyle; and we will put up with most anything. Take away those things and we would make any compromise to get them back. Imagine if hunger were a way of life. Most people don’t think past the creature comforts, especially if they don’t have them. God stood right in front of those people in the flesh, and all they saw was their next meal. God’s hand is on your life and mine, and what do we think about? The Living God prowls our land while we dream small dreams.

Anyway, Jesus tells them they ought to ask for food that gives eternal life. And they say, “What does God want us to do?” And Jesus says, “Believe in me. That’s what God wants you to do. That’s how you gain eternal life. Put your trust in me.” Then they say—and this is absolutely classic, because keep in mind, they witnessed the sign of the feeding of the 5,000 just the day before; they were there; they were part of it—they say, “Well, what sign are you going to show us so that we can believe in you?”

That’s chutzpah. But wait! It gets better. They don’t even give him time to answer. They charge right in with a suggestion: “Our ancestors ate manna in the wilderness.” They want bread! They can’t get their minds off it. Jesus tries to raise their vision to heaven, but they can’t keep their eyes off their stomachs. For them, nothing would be more convincing than bread from heaven. And here’s why: They have the right story, but they’ve gotten the characters mixed up. They see Jesus as a prophet, maybe the Messiah. In their mind—best case scenario—if Jesus really is all he’s cracked up to be, then he is another Moses. And that’s what they want. “Give us a leader, a prophet like Moses.” And suddenly, as if in fulfillment of all their wildest hopes, here comes Jesus, and he looks for all the world like the one Moses spoke of when he said, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet” [Deut 18.15]. All Jesus has to do to pass the test and win their allegiance is give them manna. After all, Moses gave their ancestors bread from heaven ...

Jesus says, “No, no. You’ve got it all wrong. Moses did not give your ancestors bread from heaven, my Father did—God did. And I am not Moses. I am the manna. I am the bread from heaven. I am the bread of life.” They had the right story, but they thought of Jesus as Moses. He wanted them to think of him as the bread. Back in Moses’ day, God provided bread from heaven to keep his people alive. Now, in Jesus’ day—and in our day—God has provided his own Son, Jesus, to sustain and keep his people alive. In verse 32, Jesus employs the present tense: “It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.” God’s action is now, not just in the past.

OK … that’s step one. That’s the passage. What does it mean to us when Jesus calls himself the bread of life? Perhaps a story will help.

Harold and Carla lived on the same street. They were both in their early teens. Both had grandmas who were coming for Christmas. Harold was excited because his grandmother always gave good presents. His parents were too practical, giving clothes or depositing money into his college fund. Grandma gave cash and video games. Best of all, she checked with him first to see what game he might want. This was good, because she would never have had a clue otherwise. They were from different generations. He was fully wired; she did well to check email. They didn’t have anything in common, really, so they never had much to talk about. But Harold appreciated grandma’s thoughtful gifts.

Carla, in contrast, had a strong bond with her grandmother. Grandma was the one she could talk to about anything, such as boys. When her parents didn’t understand (which was most of the time), she could always count on grandma. So she looked forward to the visit and the hours they would spend together talking, cooking, and shopping.

Question: Whose grandmother would you rather be? You don’t have to be a grandparent to get this one. I’m a long way from being a grandfather, but I know my answer. I would always choose to be valued for who I am rather than what I can give someone. Always. I’m sure you feel the same way. We shouldn’t be surprised that Jesus feels the same way. He wanted the crowd to appreciate him for who he is, not because he gave them bread. He wants the same from us. Love Jesus for who he is, not because of what he gives you.

When Jesus tells you he is the bread of life, he’s telling you how you ought to feel about him. You ought to treasure him as your own life, because you know that in him you have life—real life, meaningful life, eternal life. And apart from him you have nothing; you are nothing. He wants to give you everything. Christians talk about going to heaven when you die, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What most people think about when they hear the words “eternal life” is only a reflection of a shadow of the real thing Jesus gives. He promises resurrection to eternal life. He offers reconciliation with God, so that you finally know yourself as God’s creature and God as your Creator—no, not just as your Creator, but also as your Father. Can you imagine a place where everyone knows the real you: no masks, no secrets; and they love you? You are valued, respected, and loved. That’s what Jesus offers. You can only begin to imagine life in the kingdom of God. It’s like walking into a restaurant, and you’re greeted at the door by this heavenly aroma. Your mouth starts to water. “Umm, something smells good.” What you can know and experience of God’s kingdom in the present is like that smell. The smell is good, but how much better is the taste! Jesus himself often compared the kingdom of God to a meal. Just wait until you sit down and take that first glorious bite. Words cannot describe it. That’s why the New Testament is so full of poetic language yet you still get the sense the writers can’t get the words right.

Jesus wants to give you all this. And he does give it to you if you have faith in him. Yet the greatest gift he gives, and the one we ought to treasure above all others, is himself. Jesus is never the means to an end, whether the end you have in mind is a chunk of bread or highest heaven. He is the gift. He is the life. Not only because none of the rest is possible apart from him, but more because he is the power and beauty behind it all. Without him, eternal life would not be worth living. With him, it is not only possible but wonderful.

Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” We realize that only in him do we have life. We realize that he is the greatest of God’s gifts. He never wanted to be another Moses. He was the manna all along. He sustains us—not only individually as Christians, but even more as a church. He is our life. And we ought to treasure him above everything else, loving him for who he is, and not only for what he gives us.

One thing he has given us is the Lord’s Supper, but it is very special. So special that we call it a sacrament, because we believe that what God does at this table is just as real as, and far more important than, what we do. When we eat this bread and drink this cup, our Lord Jesus gives himself to us. Not physically, as if the bread changed into something else, but spiritually and truly. We feed on him in our hearts by faith. Calvin used to teach that when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we do not bring Christ down from heaven and put him on the table; rather, Christ raises us up to heaven. Christians have understood the Supper in different ways, but most of them come down to this simple truth: Jesus Christ gives himself to us, really and truly. He is the bread of life. Amen.

rev_mauldin@yahoo.com back to sermons